Praying With and Behind Muslims of Different SectsBy:Dr. Ahmad Shafaat

(1983)

Some years ago in Pakistan a "Wahhabi"(1) was
a little late for his maghreb (prayer offered just after sun
sets) prayer. So he swiftly went to the nearest mosque he could find
and joined the congregational prayer that was already in progress.
It was thus far a beautiful scene: a man is busily engaged in the
affairs of his daily life when time comes for prayer: he leaves
aside whatever he was doing and hastens to join his fellow-Muslims
in the remembrance of his Lord and Creator. But what took place
afterwards was an incident of such ugliness that it should repulse
any human being in whom something of the beautiful nature with which
God originally created man has survived.

It so happened that the mosque in which
our Wahhabi friend went to pray belonged to the "Bralevis"(2),
or rather we should say, was under Bralevi occupation,
since mosques do not really belong to
any particular group or individual but to God and all Muslims.
In any case, when in the first two raka'as (units) of the
maghreb prayer the imam recited Surah al-fatihah the Wahhabi
said aloud, as Wahhabis are wont to say, "Amin", meaning that
may God accept the prayer for guidance and salvation contained in
the blessed Surah. This loud utterance of "Amin" was enough
to greatly disturb the other worshippers in the mosque. As soon as
the prayer ended, one of them shouted: "Who was this dog?" When the
unfortunate stranger had been identified, a crowd encircled him and
after a variety of insults, threw him out of the mosque. But the
worshippers' madness did not stop at this. When the unwelcome
visitor was gone, they washed the mosque as one would wash a mosque
after a dog had actually passed through it.

For most Muslims it is an unpleasant and
sad experience to read about this type of incident. But these
incidents represent a part of the reality about our Muslim societies
and communities. We must not close our eyes to that reality, however
ugly it may be. We must face it in order to change it.

In some Muslim countries sectarian
differences, strictly prohibited by the Holy Qur`an, have become so
deep and absolute over the past centuries that even those ulama
(Muslim jurists) who rise above those differences or deal with them
in an enlightened, Islamic, way feel helpless against them. They
tend to accept the situation and live with it.

But here in North America we have a
unique opportunity to change the situation. Most Muslim communities
here are quite young, being no more than a few decades old.(3) We
can, if we so choose, organize our communal and religious life on
right lines, so that we and our children will not fall into the type
of sectarian darkness into which some of our fellow-Muslims in
Muslim countries have fallen, so that in ten, twenty or one hundred
years from now we or our children will not be washing mosques simply
because a member of another Muslim sect has passed through them.

Unfortunately, we seem to be making no
conscious effort to make use of this opportunity. Rather, a recent
event in a local mosque shows that we are slowly following the
footsteps of our sectarian-minded forefathers.

A couple of months ago about a
dozen brothers gathered in one of the local mosques. It was time for
prayer. One of the brothers was asked to act as the imam. He moved
forward and led the prayer. The imam happened to be a shi'a
but the brothers praying behind him did not know about it until
during the prayer some of them noticed that the imam stood in prayer
with his hands down as shi'a brothers normally do. After the
prayer was completed one of the brothers bluntly asked the imam
whether he was a shi'a, to which he replied that he was. This
started a discussion among the sunni brothers with most of
them saying that their prayer was null and void. The imam himself
went into a corner of the mosque and started to read the Holy
Qur`an. The discussion went on for a while and eventually it was
decided that the Sunnis should repeat their prayer behind a
sunni imam, which is what was done.(4)

There are very many Sunni
brothers and sisters who feel this way about praying behind
Shi'as and vice versa. We ask all these brothers and sisters
whether this attitude of theirs is based on the teachings of Allah
and His messenger or whether they are following principles that
their own minds have invented? If they answer this question
truthfully, they will have to admit that they are following the
inventions of their own minds, for Allah and His messenger have
taught nothing that condones this behavior.

The Holy Qur`an does not say anything
explicit on the subject of imamat (leading of prayer) in
prayers but it teaches us that each person is directly and
individually responsible before God: there are no intermediaries
that between God and man. Consequently, in
Islam the imam does not act as a mediator for those praying behind
him as a priest does in some other religions. Rather, each
Muslim stands on his own in his prayers. The acceptance or
non-acceptance of his prayers depends solely on his own faith,
taqwa (Fearful God-consciousness) and presence of mind and heart
during the prayers. The function of the imam is only to coordinate
the movements in the prayers.

Hadith confirms the above view of the
imam and gives some more detailed guidance. For example, it teaches
us:

1) Mistakes committed by the imam do not
necessarily affect the prayers of those praying behind him. Thus, in
one tradition in Bukhari the Prophet is reported to have said:

"They lead you in prayer, and if
they do it properly you will reap the reward, but if they make
mistakes you will reap a reward and they will be held responsible."

2) Muslims should, of course, choose an
imam of good character and the community should have at its disposal
means to remove an imam if it is not pleased with him. But if in
some situations a Muslim finds a person whom he thinks to be impious
leading the prayer he should not refuse to pray behind him. In one
hadith, the Prophet is reported to have said:

"Prayer is a necessary duty for
you behind any Muslim, pious or impious, even if he commits heinous
sins." (Abu Dawud)

3) While it is the duty of a Muslim not
to refuse to pray behind any other Muslim, it is at the same time a
duty of the imam that he should withdraw from his position of
imamat as soon as he realizes that a majority of the people who
pray behind him do not wish him to be their imam. In a tradition
related by Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah, the Prophet has said
that there are three persons whose prayers are not raised a span
above their heads (i.e. are not accepted). One of these three
persons is an imam who continues leading the prayers even though he
knows that a majority of people who pray behind him do not wish him
to lead them in prayers.

4) The main qualification of an imam is
that he should be well-versed in the Holy Qur`an, that is, he should
have committed enough of the Holy Qur`an to memory and should know
how to recite it properly. A tradition reports the Prophet as
saying:

"Most worthy to act as imam is the
one who is most versed in the Qur`an" (Muslim)

That is why, we find instances in the
early days of the Companions when even a boy of six or seven could
lead grown-ups in prayer if no older persons sufficiently
well-versed in the Qur`an were to be found. (Bukhari)

It is clear from the above teaching from
the Holy Qur`an and Hadith that any Muslim with sufficient knowledge
of the Qur`an can lead prayers and that we should not refuse to pray
behind any Muslim.

Now throughout the
centuries Sunnis and Shi'as have recognized each other
as Muslims.Ulama of each sect may have
found some extreme form of beliefs held by some members of the other
sect as objectionable or even blasphemous but never have they
declared all members of the other sect as non-Muslim. Never have
Sunniulama said that all Shi'as are kafirs(5) (non-believer,
rejecter of faith) and never have Shi'a ulama declared that
all Sunnis are non-believers. Consequently, in the light of
the above teaching from the Holy Qur`an and Hadith it is not right for us to refuse to
pray behind a brother simply because he is a Sunni or a
Shi'a.

Some Sunnis, while willing to
pray behind imams belonging to Sunni sects different
from their own, are nevertheless reluctant to pray behind a Shi'aimam. But we cannot be selective in applying Islamic
principles: Shi'as are Muslims and if prayer behind any
Muslim is our duty, as one hadith teaches us, then we cannot refuse
to pray behind Shi'as just because they are Shi'as.

Slight differences in modes of prayer
that exist between Shi'as and Sunnis (and also within
Shi'a and Sunni groupings themselves) should not be
made the basis for refusing to pray behind each other. The fact is
that almost all, if not all, Muslim groups
pray according to the traditions of the Prophet. Their
different modes of prayer all contain the elements of the prayer
fixed in the Holy Qur`an and Hadith: qayam, recitation of the
Qur`an, bowing, prostrating, praises of God and declaration of His
unity, blessings of the Prophet (durud). They differ only in
regard to matters that Allah and His messenger have not fixed but in
which the Prophet himself followed different ways, e.g. in regard to
the question of what exactly to say in different positions of the
prayer, whether to raise one's hands at every change of position (rafa'
yadayn) etc. It is not at all necessary to stick to one fixed
method of prayer throughout one's life, since the Prophet himself
did not rigidly follow a single fixed method. In praying behind an
imam who follows a method different from that which we have been
taught by our parents, we can either follow our usual method or
follow the imam's way.

Notes

(1)A
Muslim who follows the interpretation of Islam as given by Shaikh
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792)

(2)Muslims
who follow the interpretation of Islam as given by Mawlawi Ahmad
Reza Khan of Brailly

(3)For
example, in 1931 there were only about 650 Muslims in Canada. This
means that almost all the 200,000 Muslims now living in Canada came
here in the last fifty years or less.

(4)After
the preparation of this article, we learnt that the brothers who
repeated an asr (mid-afternoon) prayer after finding out that
the imam who led the prayer was a shi'a later talked to an
'alim (Muslim scholar) and discovered that they were wrong. They
then apologized to the shi'a brother. God will certainly
bless these brothers for their sincerity and readiness to bow to
Islamic principle. However, the point made in this article remains
relevant, since there are still many Sunni and Shi'a
brothers and sisters in our community who hold wrong notions about
praying with and behind Muslims of other sects.

(5)Shi'as
who use insulting or obscene language for the first three rightly
guided caliphs commit a grievous sin but that doesn't make then
kafirs.